Blogging from the Cornwall, Devon border.

McDonalds New George Street, Plymouth: A Store Redesign

Wednesday last week, I got invited to a McDonald’s event. It was so exciting to visit somewhere on a blogger level, that had such a big part in my life. The New George Street Store will always mean two things for me:

Birthday parties

Pre work breakfasts

If you haven’t tried a cream cheese bagel, you are missing out. On a Sunday Morning, when I would get into work nearly 40 minutes before my shift i would sit with a bagel and a magazine, as an affordable way to have a healthy breakfast choice. I have so much love for this brand.

This event was to show Bloggers how stores gave been redesigned to be focused upon on customer experience with digitisation throughout. We were given a tour of the kirchens, with a chance to make our own Big Mac’s, it’s crazy how optimised the entire process is. Everything from 7g of onions per burger, to pickles places purposely to enable a bite with every mouthful.

Kiosks

The Kiosks are a pretty interesting new additions to McDonald’s, they allow a user to place and pay for an entire order without having to queue at the till bank. They’re exciting for a number of reasons (ontop of enabling you when you feel antisocial and you want to avoid other people).

They allow you to see all the nutritional information of an item, and to see all the sides available. In the Plymouth New George Street Store, the number of side salads ordered with a meal have increased drastically since these have been installed.

Ordering food becomes fun for kids, because they can be accessed m a lower height. This also, means they have been optimised for wheel chair users.

They have the option for vouchers, meaning you can save money easily.

Table service

They are a method of digitisating the stores. They also have tablets available for use. These have Pre installed games making them an easy choice for kids, and have the option for email access if you need to catch up on work

Table service

When placing a kiosk order you can either collect a number receipt and weight downstairs, or opt for table service. Table service allows you to chose a numbered stand, enter this number in the kiosk and sit anywhere in the restaurant whilst waiting for your order to arrive. They operate with blue tooth, allowing staff to see where you are sitting. Nicole and I used this option after the event for McFlurrys, and were adding boomerangs of our icecreams to our instagram stories within five minutes

Honestly, this was one of the best events I’ve been invited to as a blogger. Brands like Lush and No7 constantly smash it out of the part, and McDonald’s did too on this occasion. The beauty of the event was in it’s simplicity, we were given a peek behind the screen at what made such a fast paced restaurant work by people who were passionate about thier job and the team around them. I expected being in such a busy kitchen to be daunting and feel constantly in the way, but instead we were surrounded by people who were more than competent at the tasks around them, who worked at a normal stress free pace.

Talking to David about his journey from part timer whilst completing his studies to Franchisee was intriguing. We finished the event by discussing how much McDonald’s did locally for the community, from sponsoring spots kits to arranging clean ups of beauty spots and sitting on community boards.

Thank you McDonald’s; for an invitation into one of your restaurants, a chance to pick the brains of your workforce, and for sponsoring this post. Read more about the changes here.